Skiing is a sport that's rarely recreated in video game form, though a few attempts have been made in Winter Olympics titles and there have also been a few strange arcade-ish efforts. Sadly, Alpine Racer III isn't a contender for a serious skiing title; arcade "fun" is certainly the style of the game. The characters all seem to have been lifted from beat-'em-ups and are terribly stereotypical; the game promises satellite mapped runs, though we've yet to see a 200-metre rail tunnel that has snow in it, no matter how heavy the fall's been outside. This is Alpine Racer's problem: the nine runs all have bizarre and unbelievable scenery and elements to the run, as anyone who's ever tried to ski on a concrete road will tell you. OK, so your bog standard ski run may be a little dull, but skiing through traffic?! You can swap between trusty skis on to more daring snowboards but the feeling of control seems identical for each method. The graphics are dated and the game holds little of the fun of playing in the arcade (the lack of big skis to wiggle about on may be the issue). As a budget title this will be acceptable; until then, we still await a decent skiing game. --Laurent S Hall